'Aurora' review: Unhinged antihero ready to erupt

Published 4:00 am, Friday, September 16, 2011

Aurora

Drama. Written and directed by Cristi Puiu. With Cristi Puiu, Clara Voda, Valeria Seciu and Luminita Gheorghiu. Presented by the San Francisco Film Society. In Romanian with English subtitles. (Not rated. 181 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

The Romanian film "Aurora" is a challenge, with a three-hour run time, an unpleasant and unhinged main character who appears in almost every shot, and a consistent ambiguity about what he does and why.

This antihero, played by the film's director, Cristi Puiu, is a frosty bundle of hostility and paranoia, and whatever he does and whatever happens to him seems to point forward to a violent eruption.

The film takes its time detailing his mundane activities, often withholding the kind of information audiences usually expect, and it's Puiu's talent to transform it all into a highly disturbing portrait - both of an individual and a society.

"Aurora's" final extended scene answers a few questions (but not all), and may, in the good old "Psycho" tradition, be mostly about poking fun at summary "explanations."

Puiu made a good movie in 2005 called "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," the first feature in what has turned out to be a renaissance in Romanian film.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.